It’s been a long, long time…
When you’ve got nothing to say it is better to shut up and have a beer. If more people on the internet realised this then it would be a much smaller and more intelligent place. And so, as failing thoughts gave rise to failing words, silence provided the eloquence that tired phrases and contemplations struggled to muster. But as the new academic year slowly fades into view, like an apparition of the future or the suddenly recalled words of a half-remembered song, it is time to engage my thoughts again.
I started writing on here in order to provide an account of a transition. That transition is now pretty much, in word and deed, complete. Living in the Czech Republic is no longer a dream or a concept or an ideological standpoint. It is what I do. Such a thought occurred to me at about midnight, standing in the bar of the Hilton Olympia, sometime in July. I had been walking the streets of West London; streets that I had known for over a decade and walked almost every day. I recognised everything; the people, the places, the acts and the actions, and most importantly the prices at the bar. (Why doesn’t the BBC World Service mention the hyperinflation in UK bars?) It suddenly occurred to me that I was a very long way from home. It was strange that something so familiar could bring no comfort at all, but then I’ve never had herpes.
It was good to see people and interesting to see places but it was also good, two days later, to get back home. Home, the place where public transport runs on time and when you call for a cab you can reach someone who speaks English. Home, where the sun shines brightly, the thunder claps often, and the government doesn’t give you foot’n’mouth. Home, where the music clubs regularly have good jazz, the theatres regularly have good operas, and the pubs regularly have good topless nights. Home, where I can afford a floor instead of a room, a crate instead of a bottle, and a life instead of a wish. There’s no going back. If there is a going it will be a going forward. I either stay planted here or I head off into the wilderness like a wandering traveller, only selling knowledge instead of stolen car radios, riding an aeroplane instead of a caravan, and washing more often. The UK is not an option. My wallet, my mind, and my nerves just could not take it.
What I intend to write for the next few months is more of a sequence of snapshots of life in Prague than a linear continuation of anything or everything. Scenes that capture characters other than my ever-present menagerie of betraying ghosts and hang-ups. They will be about me of course. Anyone who believes that any writer ever writes about anything other himself is not as perceptive as they probably give themselves credit for when they’re trying to impress girls on a date. There are a lot of pictures in this city, and pictures (with the exception of Penthouse) always look best in words.
Watch this space…
